


Kiss and Run Away

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: BAMF Nepeta Leijon, Dream Bubbles (Homestuck), F/F, Femslash, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Prompt Fic, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21721348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: Nepeta and Terezi in the dreambubbles, after the end of their respective timelines.
Relationships: Nepeta Leijon/Terezi Pyrope
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	Kiss and Run Away

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic back in May of 2012, in response to the following [kinkmeme prompt](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/17313.html?thread=36104609#t36104609): _"So, the first time I kissed a girl, she ran away. It was the first time I had kissed a girl, and it was the first time she had kissed a girl also. I gave her a chaste kiss, pulled back, she kissed me back very enthusiastically (with tongue), looked at me, completely shocked, and literally ran in the opposite direction._
> 
> _"We started dating and went out for two and a half years. We used to do stupid things like tell each other bedtime stories we would make up. They usually had bamf lesbian characters. Who would get together in the end of course, and kiss. And I would always tease her with, 'oh, and then she kissed her back, and ran away'. This plot point was in almost every story._
> 
> _"I'd love it if someone put that in a kink-meme story. [...] I would like this to be slash or femslash, since I'm not sure this reaction really makes sense for a het couple?"_

When Aradia flew into Nepeta's dreambubble like an enticing scarlet bug, woke her from an endlessly replayed aftermidnight adventure with Pounce, and explained that Nepeta was dead now, the first thing Nepeta did was ask if she could steer her bubble to meet any of their friends.

"Not like steering a ship," Aradia said with a smile, "but they bump into each other and fuse all the time. You can make sure you end up in the same bubble as another ghost if you're touching each other when the bubbles split. And I think if you wish very hard, you might get lucky about which people you meet!"

"Like my meowrail?" Nepeta asked.

"Yes! Only he might not be the Equius from your timeline," Aradia said, still smiling. "We all died an awful lot, so there are hundreds of us floating around the Furthest Ring! Do you remember how you died?"

"Gamzee," Nepeta growled, her claws flashing onto her hands, dripping indigo. She felt her own blood seep down the side of her head from where the traitor had clubbed her to death. At least he wouldn't have outlived her very long, not with the bloody ruin she'd made of his guts. "We killed each other."

Aradia's smile dimmed a bit. "Oh. You must be from very close to the alpha timeline. There aren't many where Gamzee snapped, and in most of those your death was a lot messier."

"Alpha timeline?"

"My timeline -- the main one," Aradia clarified. "Which means you're one of the last Nepetas to die."

Nepeta let her claws snap back into her strife specibus. It wasn't good to know she was dead for good and forever -- that there might never be another Nepeta still alive and having adventures -- but if Aradia was here and had God Tier wings and proper yellow eyes instead of creepy white voids, that might mean she was alive. Somehow. And _that_ might mean...

"Who survived?" Nepeta asked.

Aradia's smile widened until her teeth practically sparkled. "Karkat lived! Terezi and Kanaya did too. Terezi killed Vriska, and Kanaya's a rainbow drinker now, all bright and glowing -- she cut Eridan in half with her chainsaw! I also lived, and Sollux is only half dead, but he decided to stay in the Furthest Ring with me instead of travelling onward to the humans' Scratched session." Aradia paused, then said with evident reluctance. "Gamzee's alive too. My Nepeta wasn't quite fast enough to kill him, and then Karkat shooshed him. They're moirails now."

Nepeta felt herself drooping. Karkat, bound together in a quadrant with the troll who murdered her and Equius. Yes, she'd shipped them before everything went to hell, but after everything Gamzee had done, she didn't want to hear that he made any version of Karkat happy. She wanted him dead -- dead _in pieces_ , torn into little shreds so fine she couldn't claw them apart any smaller. Not so much for killing her. That could probably qualify as self-defense, since there was no way she would ever have stopped trying to kill him! But the way he'd taken advantage of her poor moirail and his silly reverence for hemocaste ranks... _Grrrrr_.

"I'm sorry to bring bad news, Nepeta," Aradia said. "Attacking me won't change anything, though."

Nepeta realized she had her claws out again and was flexing her fingers as she snarled. She hastily unequipped them and tried to dredge up a smile and her old positive outlook.

"I suppaws I'll have to start my shipping wall all ofur again," she said. "It won't be furry exciting with only four people to play with, but anything's better than nothing."

"Seven people on the meteor!" Aradia told her. "Dave and Rose joined us after creating the Green Sun, and somebody teleported an injured Dersite shortly before Sollux and I sent everyone on their way. Also, just because people are dead doesn't mean they can't learn and change and fall in love. You have hundreds of us to pair off, and the different timelines have made some of us quite different from each other! I think that will be very exciting."

"Purrhaps it will," Nepeta said.

"Good! If you think you'll be all right now, I should go find more of us to make sure we're awake and aware," Aradia said, and flew out of the dreambubble when Nepeta dredged up a smile and promised she'd be okay.

\---------------

Nepeta never did learn to steer her dreambubble, but that turned out to matter less than she'd expected because not too long after Aradia left -- maybe two nights or so, even if it was hard to be sure in a dream with no external point of reference -- somebody else steered into her.

The first sign was the change of foliage, blue-violet leaves shading toward purple-pink on half the trees. Then green circles and tendrils crept across the sky like a fantastic aurora, and when Nepeta opened a giant teapot in search of a distraction -- in LOLCAT they had mostly hidden imps or sidequests, but here they seemed to hide more mundane things like paint or grubcorn or balls of yarn -- she found it stuffed full of dismembered scalemates.

"I know you're here, Purrezi!" she said, leaping up onto the rim of the teapot and equipping her claws. "The mighty huntress stands guard ofur the carcass of her prey and says no dragon will steal it from her!"

The thing about dreambubbles was that normal laws didn't have to apply if dreamers didn't want them to, so there was no warning roar from Terezi's rocket wings as she swooped down, caught Nepeta under her raised arms, and carried her into the glowing air.

"The mighty dragon would never stoop to petty theft!" Terezi shouted into Nepeta's ear, voice blurred by the sudden roar of the wind. "She simply claims the tribute that is her rightful due!"

Nepeta wriggled in delight. She was _flying!_ She'd never convinced Equius it was safe and okay to let her alchemize rocket technology when he could just pick her up and STRONG jump to almost anywhere she might want to go. But Terezi would never drop her and this was the most awesome thing ever! Except for cats and tea and romance, of course, or the thrill of the hunt and blood on her claws, which was actually a lot of things come to think of it, but still. _Flying!_

The wind tore her hat from her head. Nepeta caught it between her feet and laughed.

"You like?" Terezi shouted.

"It's purrfect!" Nepeta shouted back. "Nefur land!"

"That could get awkward," Terezi said. She wiggled her fingers in Nepeta's armpits, then laughed and licked her ear when Nepeta squirmed. "Let's make you wings of your own. That will be even more fun."

It wouldn't really -- cats didn't have wings, and it was more interesting to be surprised than to do everything herself -- but Nepeta twisted her head to grin back at Terezi. "You'd better watch out once I can chase you efurrywhere!" she said.

"I'll see you coming," Terezi said. "I see everything."

The sky's colors flashed teal and scarlet for a second, the exact shade of Karkat's blood mixed with Terezi's. Then darkness spread from eight spots until everything was pitch black and Nepeta could barely see her own hands in front of her face. In the distance, she heard Gamzee's voice rise and fall, and Equius's heavy footsteps rang all too loud on the metal floor of the lab.

"Think of something happy!" Nepeta shouted over the rising sound of Vriska's laughter. "We need a happy meowmory! Fast!" She thought about Pounce and her cave, but she couldn't hold the image steady and flaming rocks began to fall from the sky.

"I'm trying!" Terezi shouted back, her claws digging through Nepeta's coat as she fought the keening wind. Alternia's ocean flashed underneath them, cold and hungry under the moonlight. "They keep twisting. Maybe if we think of the same one. Do you remember when we met?"

"Yes!"

"Remember it as hard as you can!"

Nepeta closed her eyes and sank her teeth into the scent and shape of a dim season night, trailing a strange troll as she wandered through the forest poking at carnivorous flowers and fencing imaginary foes. She remembered leaping down from a branch and pinning her prey to the ground, then laughing at Terezi's indignation. She remembered helping Terezi backtrack her own trail, since she'd been lost and had spent her time studying law instead of woodcraft. She remembered spending the day in Terezi's hive -- such a strange den, all airy and made of twigs instead of sensible stone -- and how Terezi had tripped over Nepeta's legs when she'd stumbled out of her recuperacoon in the evening.

She remembered climbing up to the very top of Terezi's tree, where the branches dipped and swayed dangerously under their weight, and watching drone satellites streak glitter-bright across the pink moon's face. She remembered exchanging guarded gossip about their friends and how Terezi had laughed so hard she nearly fell from her perch when they realized that their respective moirail and best hatefriend were the terrible neighbors that Equius and Vriska both liked to complain about for hours. She remembered--

Terezi landed with a crashing jolt, and Nepeta felt sanded wood under her hands. She opened her eyes to the branches that shaded Terezi's hive, blue wood festooned with pink and lavender leaves. The forest's rich symphony of scents and sounds drifted upward from the invisible ground.

"I think we're safe," Terezi said, squirming until her back was pressed against the massive branch that speared upward through her observation platform.

"Fur now," Nepeta agreed. She looked warily at the sky, finding the slight shimmer behind the moons that marked the edge of this fragile afterlife -- farther away now that Terezi's bubble had merged into hers. "Aradia calls these places dreambubbles. I guess they make efurry dream come true. Even the bad ones."

Terezi wrapped her arms around Nepeta from behind and hooked her chin over Nepeta's shoulder. "Yeah. Let's not lose control again." Her jaw was very pointy and her arms were all wire and knobs, not like Equius's nice comfy muscles. Nepeta didn't care -- she squirmed in Terezi's grip until they were facing each other and she could return the hug.

It wasn't pale, not really. It was just... nice.

Warm.

Nepeta leaned her head against Terezi's chest and listened to her friend's blood-pusher beat, loud and steady like water falling on stone from stalactites after a storm. It was funny how real their bodies seemed, even though Terezi's blank white eyes made their mutual lack of life excruciatingly clear. She'd always wanted to hug Terezi before, but she'd never quite dared -- tackles, sure, quick pounce-and-retreats, but to just stay close and hold on, without the cover of a game or a joke to guard against the threat of Terezi's sarcasm...

They were dead now. Sarcasm didn't seem so dangerous anymore.

And Terezi was holding on just as tight.

"I missed you during the game," Nepeta admitted. "It was fun going on quests with Equius and Fefurry and Karkitty and Kanaya -- even with Gamzee, that traitor! -- but I wanted to go on quests with you and Tavros too. Except Equius was afurraid Vwhiskers would insist on coming and do something, um, inapurropriate, so we avoided you until after we got cheetah'd out of our purrize and efurryone got stuck on the meowteor, and then it was too late fur anything."

Except dying.

"I didn't make it to the end of the game. Vriska betrayed us to the Black Queen. She killed me," Terezi said. "It was probably a good idea to stay away from her."

Nepeta squeezed a little tighter and breathed in Terezi's familiar scent: citrusy shampoo, chalk dust, and traces of old blood. "Gamzee killed me. I don't know why, but he went crazy and he killed Equius and then I tried--" She swallowed. "We killed each other."

"Gamzee, really?"

"Really."

Terezi shrugged. "Weird! But there's probably a timeline out there where I betrayed our plans to the Black Queen, or where you snapped and killed a bunch of us. Anyone can go bad in the wrong circumstances."

Terezi, Nepeta recalled, had never been a comforting sort of person. 

It was kind of comforting that even death hadn't changed that.

"I suppaws," she said. Then she changed the subject rather than dig into whatever mucky emotions Terezi was covering up with nonchalance. (She knew Equius inside and out. Of course she could recognize deflection, even if Terezi was better at it than her poor moirail.) "I wonder if that means anyone can fall in hate or pity with anyone else under the right circumeowstances? Oh, you have to tell me what ships sank and which ones went canon in your timeline! In mine, Fefurry broke up with Eridan when they entered the Medium, and I think she and Sollux were pussyfooting around something flushed, which made Eridan try fur something black with Sollux but he wasn't interested."

Which was only good sense, in Nepeta's opinion. Eridan wouldn't make a good partner for anyone until he pulled his head out of his nook long enough to realize that other people's lives didn't revolve around him.

Could he do that now that he was dead? Could dead people change?

The idea of being stuck at six sweeps for eternity -- to say nothing of being stuck in old emotional ruts -- was depressing. Nepeta shoved it aside and continued talking ships.

"And Vwhiskers tried to go black with Tavros _again_ , which didn't work until the meowteor and then... well, efurrything was already falling apart by that point. Um, and I think Kanaya was flirting with one of the aliens who live in the new unifurs we created. Did you get to meet the aliens?"

"No aliens for me," Terezi said, "probably because we didn't win the game. Our Feferi-Eridan-Sollux mess sounds similar to yours, but my Kanaya roped Tavros into helping her with the Genesis Frog so Vriska spent most of her time doing sidequests with me, until she said something about going to investigate a potential cheat code and, well. Joined with the Black Queen to kill us all."

Nepeta snarled into the hollow of Terezi's throat. Stupid Vriska. Just because she and Terezi had been hatefriends since forever didn't give her the right to be Terezi's be-all and end-all. It _definitely_ didn't give her the right to turn Terezi into collateral damage. "Did you make her pay for it?"

"I stabbed her in the eye. I don't know if I got all the way into her brain," Terezi said in a disturbingly thoughtful tone.

Nepeta gave a few comforting licks along her collarbones.

Terezi made an exaggerated face. "Eww, sandpaper tongue. Bad kitty! See if I bring you any steaming hot entrails anymore."

Nepeta grinned and licked Terezi again. "I'll just eat yours instead. I bet you're delicious."

"I'm hurt that you think my deliciousness could ever be a matter of question," Terezi said, sounding much more present. Good.

"But anyway, what other ships came close to sailing...? I think Gamzee was trying to pacify Eridan toward the end, which could not possibly have gone well in the long term but was hilarious to watch." Terezi paused, made a funny little noise in the back of her throat, sort of like _glurk_ , and then said with blatantly threadbare nonchalance, "Also, my version of you kissed Karkat. Or at least you sent me a message saying you were going to. I don't know how he took it because I was on a different Land and the Black Queen killed me before I could follow up. But that was definitely a thing that happened."

"Oh," Nepeta said.

"Yeah. Sorry."

Nepeta curled herself up small until she was sitting in Terezi's narrow, pointy lap. "I asked. And I guess... I guess it's good to know that at least one fursion of me was brave enough to try. Purrobably."

She wanted Equius. She tried not to think about wanting him too strongly. There was too much risk she might dream up a fake version, and that would just make everything infinitely worse.

Terezi poked Nepeta's forehead with one pointy finger. "Definitely brave enough! Anyway, enough about dead people -- or _other_ dead people; this ghost business is ridiculous. If we can dream up whatever we want, I want to introduce you to LARPing."

It figured that Terezi could tell when to change the subject. She was brilliant at reading people, even if she mostly used the skill as a weapon. Nepeta seized grateful hold of the offered distraction.

"Shouldn't that be FLARPing?"

"Nah, nothing that structured, and also we're already dead so the 'fatal' bit is obviously irrelevant. Come to think of it, so is the 'live' part. I guess we'll be... GARPing? DARPing?" Terezi raised her eyebrows in a conspiratorial way, like she was inviting Nepeta into cahoots. "Which sounds better: ghost action role-play, or dead action role-play?"

"Ghosts," Nepeta said firmly, still curled in Terezi's lap. "Ghosts can do stuff. Dead bodies are just food."

"Or props," Terezi said. "You can't run a proper investerrogation scenario without at least one corpse. But yeah, you're right. So. One GARPing session! Do you have any preferences for a type of campaign, or should I just crib from some of our old online sessions?" She paused, an intrigued expression sliding over her face. "Wait. Wait, I just had the best idea. At least, I think it's good. If it works."

"Of course it's a good idea," Nepeta said. "It's yours."

Terezi grinned and waggled her eyebrows. "Flatterer! But listen -- this is a dream world. If we can change the scenery and the props, why shouldn't we change ourselves? I bet we can _actually be_ a dragon and a giant sabretooth purrbeast!"

Her smile was as infectious as hunt-lust.

Nepeta leaned up and kissed her.

It was a little kiss, quick and light on the corner of Terezi's mouth -- almost like Pounce used to kiss Nepeta when she was a tiny wiggler, or like she kissed Equius on his nose and cheeks and forehead when he was having an awful night -- but it felt somehow heavy, like holding out a haunch of freshly killed hoofbeast between her teeth and hoping Terezi found the offering worthy.

Terezi blinked.

Then she kissed Nepeta back, wet and messy and full of teeth and tongue.

Nepeta's blood-pusher raced and something throbbed low down in her body, like when she used to dream about Karkat but fiercer, all here and now and _alive_ instead of someday and maybe and what-if. She sank one hand into a fistful of Terezi's hair, clamped the other on her shoulder, tugged her down and closer and who _cared_ that her throat and belly were open and unguarded, she knew Terezi wouldn't take unfair advantage and dammit why was breathing still a thing when she wanted to dive inside Terezi's mouth and never come up for air and--

Terezi made a breathless squeak in the back of her throat and threw herself sideways, hard enough to leave a chunk of her hair in Nepeta's fingers and tear one of her teeth through Nepeta's upper lip.

"I-- I-- uh--"

Nepeta was never quite sure later what she said in response -- probably some wordless verbal equivalent of '???'

Whatever it was didn't resolve Terezi's bluescreen.

"I have to go," Terezi said all in a rush, and dove off the edge of the platform without equipping her rocket wings.

Nepeta found herself on her feet and half over the railing with no clear memory of moving. But there was no sign of Terezi's passage -- no scent, no sound of engines, no swirl and shake of disturbed leaves and branches. She'd vanished the way dreams did in the evening, as sleep faded into waking

Nepeta pulled back her outstretched fingers, dropped the hank of hair (faintly teal-stained at the ends) into her coat pocket, and rubbed the back of her hand across her bloody lips while she tried to reboot her own think pan.

Clearly normal tracking wouldn't work in a dreambubble. But she was a mighty huntress! If anyone could find a way to bring Terezi to bay, she could.

The real question was, _should_ she? When she still wasn't sure what in the multiverse had just happened between them? And when Terezi might react even more violently without a chance to cool down?

...On the other hand, Terezi liked a challenge and playing huntress and prey was an old game between them. And Nepeta could use a bit of familiarity to settle her own thoughts. If Terezi wasn't happy to be caught, they could burn that bridge when they got there, but they'd never get anything worked out if they didn't talk.

Nepeta pulled up her Trollian app and typed a quick message, concentrating on the belief that their shared dreambubble would make sure it sent to the right Terezi at the right point on the timeline:

AC: :33 < you can run but you catnot hide  
AC: :33 < im coming to find you, purrezi  
AC: :33 < we need to talk

She decided to give Terezi five minutes to write back, and sat down to doodle while she waited. She only meant to draw a picture of Pounce, but the pose and expression kept coming out wrong, too young and bouncy for her lusus. Well, fine: it could be a self-portrait instead. It could even count as character background development for the GARPing session Terezi had halfway promised her.

Nepeta touched her bloody lip again, thoughtfully.

Then she slid the purrbeast to the lower left corner of the screen and added a stooping dragon in the upper right. Between them she sketched a heart.

She stared at the drawing for a long moment.

Just as she was about to delete it and start over, Terezi wrote back:

GC: M4YB3 W3 DO  
GC: BUT YOU H4V3 TO 34RN 1T F1RST  
GC: TH1S WORLD 1S M4D3 OF PUR3 1M4G1N4T1ON 4ND 1M TH3 S33R OF M1ND  
GC: C4TCH M3 1F YOU C4N

Nepeta smiled in predatory glee.

AC: :33 < game on!

She saved the drawing before she swung off the platform and into the dangerous blue-violet shadows of the forest.

\---------------

Dream-hunting was about concentration and desire, not physical tracking. Terezi wanted to stay hidden; Nepeta wanted to find her. The trick was both to maintain a razor-sharp focus on her goal _and_ to also keep her peripheral attention just loose enough to catch any waver in Terezi's own focus that might give away her location.

In theory, she could probably do the whole thing by sitting down and thinking very hard, but that was no fun. So Nepeta loped idly through the not-quite-familiar forest around Terezi's hive, scratching little dragon doodles on random surfaces -- mostly leaves and bark, but also porcelain, broken robot parts, and other dream detritus -- and imagining them into flight.

They swarmed around her like wasps or dragonflies, eager for the hunt, buzzing their excitement in faint bursts of color instead of sound. Yes. This was good. She'd never joined a formal hunt, with barkbeasts and weapons and signal horns, but this felt right. Terezi deserved the best.

When she had two dozen dragons in her swarm, Nepeta bared her fangs and ran, hurtling forward through wisps of memories and might-have-beens with her whole heart fixed on one shining target.

Shades of past selves flickered in her wake: five sweeps, four sweeps, two sweeps, one; with friends and alone; happy and heartbroken and curious and raging. Pounce raced beside her for a minute, feet light on the loamy soil and both mouths open to taste the rain-damp air. The miniature dragons swooped and dove in brilliant streaks of scarlet and obsidian, darting away and swirling back with scraps of thought clutched between their talons for Nepeta to follow or discard. Leaves crunched and sugar cracked and the strange, pulsing blots of LOMAF squished under her feet. And over it all one single constant burned: Terezi, waiting, with Nepeta's blood drying green on her lips like a promise.

And then she was there, between one breath and the next.

Nepeta tackled Terezi to the floor of her very own cave, tumbled to a halt just beside a pile of furs and bones and outgrown coats with a few stray robot parts mixed in for flavor, and grinned down in breathless triumph.

"I win."

Terezi smiled back, a little cautious and awkward rather than her usual shark-tooth confidence. "So it appears."

"So it _is_ ," Nepeta retorted. "You don't get to wiggle out on technicat--." She stalled, suddenly realizing how close she and Terezi were pressed together. "Um. Anyway, I suppaws I should let you up so we can have a confursation."

Terezi wriggled a bit under Nepeta's weight, teasing the line between struggling prey and a playful hunt partner. Nepeta pressed down reflexively.

"Nooooooo," Terezi said in a thoughtful tone. "No, I think this is fine. There's no need to move when your floor is so comfortable and you're such a nice warm blanket. Let's talk." She hooked one of her pointy, bony ankles over Nepeta's calf and grinned: still a bit careful around the edges, but much closer to normal.

"Um," Nepeta said again, suddenly unsure of what to do with her hands. She shifted them from Terezi's neck and sternum to press on the stones to either side of Terezi's shoulders, shoving herself a few inches up and back.

Somehow that bit of distance only made their closeness more apparent.

Terezi raised her eyebrows over her blank white eyes.

"You kissed me," Nepeta said.

"You kissed me first."

"Yes, but-- but it was a _furiendly_ kiss -- you know, like from your lusus to say good job, well done, we won't starve tonight. You kissed me back _red_. And then you ran away."

"Liar. That wasn't a lusus-kiss, or a pale kiss--"

"I would nefur cheat on Equius!"

"Exactly," Terezi agreed. "And it definitely wasn't black and there's no one here to be ashen about. That means you kissed me red _first_. Right after we'd been talking about you and Karkat! And I-- I don't know, kissing you was an impulse, not a thought or a plan. So I needed to get away to figure out what was underneath it."

She snapped her mouth shut and went silent, like a scurrybeast freezing in the shadows at an unexpected rustle of leaves. Or maybe like a huntress lurking in ambush, using old scent to flush out prey. Like she wanted to talk about Nepeta's reaction and feelings instead of her own.

Two could play that game. Nepeta let the silence spread, awkward and heavy, and held Terezi's blank gaze. A hot, itchy feeling pooled low in her gut, and she shifted her hips to ease the tingle in her nook.

Terezi's hips twitched in reaction, and she made an inarticulate noise of annoyance. "I don't know why I bother using investerrogation techniques on you. They never work right."

"You're a good huntress," Nepeta allowed with a toothy smile. "I'm just better. So what did you figure out?"

"That I like you. I like you red, not just as a hatefriend. I'm not sure when that happened, which is annoying because you'd think the Seer of Mind should be able to track her own thoughts and choices, but there it is. And if you like me back, I want to be your matesprit for whatever time we have in this accidental afterlife."

Nepeta gnawed on her lips. "Um. I'm purretty sure the you in my timeline liked Karkitty red, at least a little. And purrhaps one of the aliens. And Vwhiskers, of course, except I was nefur sure what quadrant. I didn't think that you-- that she-- oh, whatefur. Why me?"

Terezi slid her right hand out from between their bodies and reached up to adjust the angle of Nepeta's hat. She lingered for a moment, tucked a stray bit of hair behind Nepeta's ear and brushed her thumb down the side of Nepeta's cheek. "This isn't a courtblock and emotions aren't logical. But I guess... because you're brave and silly and strong, and illegally cute even if you don't understand hairbrushes, and I can like more than one person red without needing to capture all of them. Why did you kiss me?"

"Because-- because you _see_ me. You're purrilliant and you're beautiful even if you are made out of wires and elbows and you spend too much time playing with your purrey. And you need someone to make you happy, and I want it to be me."

"And if we run into a version of Karkat? What then?"

Hesitation was fatal when making a final leap onto a target, so Nepeta didn't. "Then it doesn't matter, beclaws I choose you." She clenched her left hand around Terezi's shoulder, felt the bone and tendon and muscle warm and solid within her grasp. "I'm not giving you back, no matter how cute he gets when he's embarrassed or how hot his butt is."

Terezi went very still for a moment. Then she blinked, and shrugged, and said, "Yours is better anyway."

Nepeta allowed herself a moment to say goodbye to all the might-have-beens. Probably Karkat wouldn't have liked her back no matter what -- at least not the one in her timeline -- and death was a very convincing reason to make a clean ending on all the regrets and embarrassments of her life. But still, it hurt a little to let go of night-dreams she'd spent nearly two sweeps refining and expanding.

Terezi probably had dreams to let go of, too. Well, helping her untangle all that was a moirail's job. All Nepeta could do was make sure neither of them was alone. And kiss her some more. And possibly fuck her, too. Yes. Those were _definitely_ thing she could do.

With that resolution firm in her blood pusher, Nepeta grinned and licked Terezi's nose. "Of claws my butt is better than Karkitty's! It's better than yours, too. Efurryone knows squats and jumping build more muscle than sitting in front of a husktop or reading old legal records all night. The real question is whether your tongue dexterity is better than mine."

Terezi grinned back with all her gloriously sharp teeth, and pressed her hips upward against Nepeta's. "I'd say I'm hurt that you think there's any question, but then again, empirical evidence is very important. I can think of a few experiments we could run."

"Me too," Nepeta said, and met Terezi's still-bloody lips with her own.


End file.
